Prof. Vincent P.K. Titanji is currently an Honorary Dean at the Faculty of Science, University of Buea. He obtained his PhD degree (1978) and ‘Docent’ title (1988) in Physiological Chemistry from Uppsala University and his MSc degree in Animal Biochemistry from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1973. Subsequently, he founded and headed the Biotechnology Center, Nkolbisson, University of Yaounde I (1986-1996) and the Biotechnology Unit, University of Buea (1997-2012). He was appointed to the University of Buea as the Dean of the Faculty of Science (1993-1998) Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching (1998-2005) and Vice Chancellor or Rector (2006-2012). As an expert in Protein Chemistry and Metabolic Regulation he initially focused on the elucidation the role of protein phosphorylation-dephosphorylation reactions in regulating glycolysis in the liver and the morphogenesis of the blinding parasite Onchocerca volvulus. Coordinating an interdisciplinary team on the applications of Molecular Biology techniques to tropical diseases, he and his colleagues devised diagnostic tests for river blindness, cloned vaccine candidates and identified new drug leads from medicinal plants for the treatment of river blindness and malaria . More recently his group has characterized new clades of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Cameroon and probed into their susceptibilities to first line TB drugs. He has successfully trained 18 PhD graduates, 60 MSc students and has published more than 110 research articles in peer-reviewed journals. Prof. VPK Titanji was instrumental in the creation of the Cameroon Biochemical Society and has been President and Secretary General respectively of the Federation of African Societies of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (FASBMB) and the Federation of African Immunological Societies (FAIS). He is a Knight of the Cameroon Order of Valour, a Chartered Biologist (C. Biol), and Fellow (FI Biol) of the Institute of Biology, London; a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences; a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS) and a recipient of the IFS/DANIDA Prize.
